Boston University
researchers this morning confirmed that the former national Football League player Dave Duerson must be afraid when he shot himself in the abdomen in February, killing the 51 who played for several teams as security. An autopsy study found that the brains of Duerson was riddled with classic signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of brain damage that becomes a growing concern among athletes in violent contact sports. The shape of the Duerson suicide was apparently carefully chosen to preserve his brain as he had texted his family that he wanted the organ to be examined at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE).
At a press conference there today, the researchers reported that there was evidence of moderately advanced CTE in several brain regions of Duerson, including the frontal cortex, the amygdala and hippocampus, which are involved in impulse control, mood, memory and other cognitive functions. "Dave Duerson had classic pathological CTE and no sign of another disease," neuropathologist and CSTE co-Ann McKee told the press conference. McKee noted that there is evidence suggesting CTE predispose to suicide, although how remains unclear; a colleague called "a problem of the chicken and the egg," explaining that CTE can cause problems in life that encourage suicide rather than specifically promote suicidal behavior by altering brain function.
collisions that cause concussions and even fewer strikes appear to stimulate the development of CTE. At the press conference CSTE co-director Chris Nowinski, a former college football player and professional wrestler, urged youth football coaches to carefully control how many violent contact, it is in practice to reduce the total number of visits. "It is incredible that we have pitch counts [in youth baseball] to protect the ligaments of the elbow, but we do not count how many times [young football players] hit the head to protect their brains," he said.
A major goal of CSTE is to develop methods to diagnose and monitor CTE during life. Only then Co-director Robert Stern CSTE noted, researchers can assess ways to prevent brain damage or reverse it. Groups use brain imaging to compare the young athletes and veterans of the NFL to control groups, for example. Others seek to cerebrospinal fluid proteins or other biomarkers that could reflect the occurrence or progression of CTE.
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